Doctors heading to Sri Lanka as part of Kaiser's effort to help

Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer

Published
4:00 am PST, Wednesday, January 12, 2005

A pair of Kaiser Permanente physicians is jetting off to Sri Lanka today, the vanguard of what promises to be dozens of doctor volunteers who will attempt to help the island nation recover from the disastrous tsunami that killed 30,000 there.

Dr. Vaji Dharmasena, a Sri Lankan-born obstetrician-gynecologist at Kaiser's Santa Teresa Medical Center in San Jose, and Dr. Hernando Garson, an emergency room specialist from Sacramento, will be scouting out medical needs in hard-hit coastal towns and inland communities that have sprouted refugee camps for newly homeless tsunami survivors.

"This is just the beginning of Kaiser Permanente's efforts," said Dr. Robert Pearl, chief executive of the medical group, at an Oakland press conference. "We'll be sending teams based on the need and their expertise."

Kaiser has already donated $1 million in cash to a variety of relief agencies.

Throughout southern Asia, an estimated 150,000 people died when a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of Sumatra generated waves that swept across the Indian Ocean, killing tourists, fisherman and coastal dwellers from Indonesia to Somalia.

More than 200 doctors from the Northern California medical group have volunteered to spend time in the disaster zone. Throughout the year, Kaiser expects to send from 50 to 100 doctors, who will rotate in shifts of two weeks to one month.

Kaiser is underwriting the cost of travel and accommodation for the physicians, as well as donating medical supplies and the doctors' time. There are about 5,000 doctors in the Northern California medical group, so Pearl said there would be minimal impact locally while the physicians were away.

Teams of two to six physicians will rotate in and out of Sri Lanka for 14- day tours of duty. In addition, infectious disease specialists will be dispatched for monthlong stints to Banda Aceh, in the hard-hit northern province of Indonesia, where more than 100,000 are believed to have perished.

Dharmasena's parents still live in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka. None of her immediate family was hurt in the disaster, which was confined to eastern and southern coastal communities, but in this small nation the impact of the tragedy is universal. "Everyone in my family knows someone who died, who lost their home or lost their business," she said.

Her own children have also spent time in Sri Lanka, playing on beaches where entire families were swept to their deaths when the tsunami arrived.

Garzon is a veteran of the Sacramento-based Urban Search and Rescue Team. He was among the first dispatched to Oklahoma City after the bombing of the federal building there in 1995 and to the site of the World Trade Center after Sept. 11.

"We'll be going over there with duffel bags of medical gear," he said.

Health concerns in the affected areas range from treating broken bones and cuts of those who lived through the horrifying events of Dec. 26, as well as preventing outbreaks of disease such as measles, cholera and malaria that can accompany a disaster of this magnitude.

Dr. David Witt, chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser's Northern California region, will leave next week with two other Kaiser doctors for Banda Aceh, where they will link up with a British organization, MENTOR, to train survivors in malaria control.

"We've seen a breakdown of basic malaria control there," said Witt. "Mosquito abatement has vanished. The public health agencies are dead. Their sprays are washed away."